A Guide to Pronouncing Easy Words for Those Who Can't

The BBQ Pit
1

I never post pit threads but I guess there is a first time for everything. And hey - why not start off with a bang - as I’m sure this is likely to piss many people off.

It seems some people have trouble pronouncing certain words. Specifically these words are rural, brewery, ask and nuclear. As a public favour I shall describe in simple terms how to pronounce these simple words.

RURAL:

“Rooo” - that’s easy, right? “Rul” - that’s easy, too.

rooo-rul
rooo-rul

See folks, its fun!

BREWERY:

“Brew”. Now try “err” and finally “eeee”. Those are nice and easy.

brew-err-eeee

I fail to see the difficulty.

ASK:

Its not ax. There’s an s. I know we can all say “ass”, so now just add a “k”.

ASSsssss – K
ASSsssss – k

Got it?

NUCLEAR:

Lets break it down. “Noooo” - I know you can do that much. Now say “clear”.

noooo-clear

Hell, we can break it down even more: nooo-cleeee-errr

Did you read this post and try along yourself? Its fun and easy!

2

[Peter Griffin] No silly its NUKE - U- LAR. The ‘S’ is silent. [/PG]

3

Specific - Spe -sif -ik (or Spu- sif -ik, but not Pa- sif -ik - that is an ocean).

4

Drawer. Several pronuciations are correct, though I prefer “dror.” New Englanders seem to have a really rough time with this, pronouncing it “draw”, and even spelling it that way.

My ex-girlfriend used to have a horrible time pronouncing the name of the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. List, darlin’, his name is not Sergio Zawa.

5

Okey-doke, Mr. Pronunciation Person, what’s the ruling on this one:

Aunt.

Is it “Ant” like the insect or “Awnt”, like, well, like a bunch of people around me seem to think it is?

And when you’ve got a minute, you might want to swing by my mother’s place and help replace all her “tawls” with “towels”.

6

I was taught “Ant” is American, and “Awnt” is British. But then, I’m Dutch, so don’t look at me as an arbiter in all things English. :slight_smile:

7

I’ve known a couple of New Englanders (Connecticut, in particular) that pronounce it “Awnt”. I believe it depends on the region. I (from New York State) pronounce it “Ant”.

My mother pronounces “Onion” as “Ung-yun”. I don’t know where she got it, b ut we tease her about it.

8

[Howland Owl]
Nuclear physics ain’t so noo, and it ain’t so clear!
[/Howland Owl]

My wife (raised in suburban Boston) insists that there is no “l” in the world “almond”.

9

In certain parts of the South, “aunt” and “ain’t” are homonyms.

10

Where is common for people to mispronounce “brewery” and “rural,” and how are these words commonly mispronounced? I’m having trouble imagining howpeople might go wrong on these ones.

If someone was lazy about enunciation, and “brewery” came out as “brew-ree,” I doubt it would bother me terribly. Is there a more egregious mispronunciation going on?

I’m totally stumped as to how “rural” can be mispronounced. What the hell?

11

Settles it for me.

Sure, my sister can do that wal (rhymes with pal) she’s there.

12

Hmmm… dictionary.com says: (ä-mnd, äl-, ôl-, mnd)

(damn syllable markers don’t show up)

13

Ok, your other words I’m fine with, but I have a problem pronouncing these. Not intentionally - I think it’s a function of my southern accent. The thing is, I know my pronounciation is odd, but I still mess them up each time I say them.
So I avoid saying them whenever possible. And when I have to say them, I generally stumble a bit in my effort to go against my natural tendencies. Then I sound like a real idiot, being unable to even get through them.

14

FYI, we Brits don’t say “awnt” or “ant”, we say “ahnt”.

I have a feeling there are certain vowel sounds that just don’t exist in certain parts of the US, hence certain people’s amazement that it is possibe to pronounce “Mary”, “marry”, “merry”, “Murray” and “moray” all differently.

Likewise, most of us pronounce “almond” as “AH-muhnd”.

Similarly, “water” does not have a “d” in the middle. Mmm’kay? :wink:

15

I’ve got another one:

Jewelry is pronounced jew-el-ry, not jew-ler-y.

16

FWIW, I don’t have a problem with “brewery”, but “brewer” sounds odd to me. I pronounce it right (I think!) but it always leaves me feeling that my teeth have got wedged behind my bottom lip somehow :dubious:

17

Mary, marry, merry are the same to me, but I use different pronunciations for Murray and moray. Again, I’m from NY if that makes any difference.

18

I’m not sure it’s geographic, but locally/regionally in california, Brewery would be mainly pronounced Brur-ee. THe middle syllable gets mashed.

Likewise for this, ‘rural’ would be pronounced rur’l, with the second syllable being very short.

At least, in MY daily usage, that’s how I either regionally pronounce, or mispronounce the words.

I puzzle over this:

Where on earth would water be pronounced wad-ter? or is that wahdder?

Sam

19

and P.S.- Water in Boston would probably be pronounced something like wah-duh.

20

Several women I work with often go the local Souper Salad for lunch to get a “baked buh-tata”. Please, as Sam Gamgee would say its PO-TA-TO.

Also, where I’m from, when some people go shopping they say, “I’m going to Targets, or Wal-marts, or K-marts.” The store is named Wal-mart, singular, not possesive or plural.

And when going to a concert or the opera or some such situation it always seems that someone will mention that they are seated on the fifth “roll” instead of row.